Murphy's Law
by doodlegirll
Summary: Dess gave him a sad look. "Well we'd better find a way." She said. "Because if we don't, we both might be looking a new form of darkling repellent: handcuffs."


**When I read this series a year and a half ago in the summer of 2008, I did so in literally five days. I was grounded, and I still cannot thank my parents enough for grounding me so I had time to read this amazing series. **

**These books definitely bumped themselves to the top of my favorites list from the very beginning! Forever the memories of me sitting in my dad's reclining lawn chair in my driveway, my iPod blasting Linkin Park while I'm nice and crispy from the July heat, as well as reading via mini flashlight by a warm fire in our firepit will be engraved in my memory. :)**

**My favorite character was Rex, and even still I can't help but want to hug the kid. He just struck me as a kid who needs a serious hug, especially after finding out why he was afraid of spiders so badly. (I even have a puppy named Rex, haha. It was the only name I could come up with for the dog that was most definitely MINE that my parents even remotely agreed with, so it stuck (not to mention he wrecks EVERYTHING, so it fits him just fine!).)**

**Anyway, I absolutely HATED THE FREAKING ENDING of the series (especially what they did to Rex!), as I'm sure everyone did, but at the same time I'm completely happy they ended it the way they did, because as a writer, I believe that you should totally take that approach with your readers - piss them off! Don't make them happy! If you piss them off, you'll only make them love the books more because they will appreciate what happened before the ending more, and better yet, their imaginations will run WILD. Thank you, fanfiction!**

**Anyway, so now that I'm rereading the series, and I think I have a pretty cool idea for what could be a fourth fanbook. :) Just to let you know now, I'm in the process of writing an actual novel with my best friend/sister, so if I disappear for a short while, that's why. I'm also in my senior year of high school, so...enough said. :)**

**Also, I'm so confused as to whether the darkling side of Rex sort of left him in ****_Blue Noon _when he went to the cave and visited them. The book says "his senses turned back to merely human," so my guess is yes, he returned to being perfectly human and no longer had a trace of darkling in him, but I can't be sure, so I'm making it just a teeny bit AU. Sorry!! (And I just did research and found that he's still part darkling...dammit!)**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Murphy's Law

_By doodlegirll_

...oOo...

Chapter One: Sight

There was no reason in the world why he should get up. No reason whatsoever.

Rex Greene sighed as he rolled over onto his stomach, letting his arm fall over the side of his bed. Everything around him was the familiar blue hue of the secret hour, and sure enough, his alarm clock's numbers blared twelve midnight from the inky depths of the digital face.

The June night was sticky, and Rex was happy to finally have a bit of respite from the incredible and unbearable heat his dark room held in the comfortable temperature of the blue time. His fan, suspended by midnight, the blades blurred together, did little to lessen the uncomfortable stuffiness, and sweat poured down Rex's bare back, and trickled through his scalp, plastering his hair to his head.

He ran a hand through the mess, reminding himself that he would have to redye it again before too much longer, brown roots beginning to appear. In the past six months it had grown long again, almost to what it used to be, covering his forehead, curling behind his ears. It was a relief, really; he had grown tired of the prickly feeling of his scalp as the hair had grown back - fairly quickly - and all the strange looks he was given at school. Especially with his friends gone and only Dess left to keep him company, Rex had wanted to disappear, and his new 'do had not helped him to do so as his goth look had. It only made him stick out.

But finally the school year was over, and he was free once again.

Not that he had anything to do.

Ever since Melissa, Jonathan, and Jessica had left Bixby to seek out other midnighters outside the city, Rex had found himself without a purpose, other than to care for Maddy, who had only just recently died over the winter after a bought of pnuemonia. His leadership was no longer needed, as there was no longer anyone to lead, and without any darklings in the area for him and Dess to deal with, midnight had been reduced to just another hour of the day.

He finally consented to dragging himself off the bed, to walk around in the pleasant midnight air, if nothing else. He grabbed a shirt and jeans from the floor next to his bed, and slipped into them, shoving his feet into his familiar boots. The sweat on his body caused the shirt to instantly cling to him, and he left the rundown house he called his home hurriedly, forgetting his glasses on the table in his bedroom.

Rex paused to grab his bike leaning against the tree. Mounting it, he began to ride, headed nowhere in particular. Maybe to Dess's.

As he passed the downtown area, Rex dared a glance up at the old Pegasus sign where the lightning had struck six months ago on Halloween - Samhain Night. He shuddered slightly, remembering how after years and years of searching he had finally found a lightning bolt frozen in midnight, but the mass hysteria around him had not permitted him to study it. Jessica, as the firebringer, had touched it, saving the daylight from the darklings that had haunted Bixby during the secret hour for millennia, but in doing so had gotten herself trapped there forever.

He noticed that the sign, which used to crawl with signs of darklings and humans alike, did not stand out as much as it used to to him.

This was just another thing that had happened since the team had disbanded.

Rex had found himself losing touch with the darkling side of his mind. He no longer thought of things as clever, or saw humans as prey. His senses had tuned down again, and he could no longer smell those around him like a dog would, or like Melissa could taste them. The old relics, the old signs of the darklings were still there, those that had been there for as far back as Rex could remember, but everything else was slowly fading. The world of daylight had slowly begun to blur around him again, and he had found a use for his thick lens glasses once more.

Not that Rex was complaining. The darkling side of him was not something he _enjoyed _exactly. It had turned him into something he did not want to be. It had turned him against himself, against his friends, against everything he knew. He had thought of Melissa, _his_ Melissa, as food. That was not a memory he was proud of.

He and Dess had many speculations and theories as to why this could be happening. The most plausible explanation was that the absence of darklings in Bixby anymore lessened it, or that maybe Maddy had done something with her mindcasting to block off that part of him. With nothing to do and nothing to fear in the blue time gave him and Dess little to do other than speculate and think and talk, and Rex began to feel a new appreciation for Dess - not only for her polymath skills that had surely saved him and the entire group more than once, helped them defend themselves in this essentially defenseless time, but also for her company. He had even begun to miss Jonathan the acrobat, no matter how much he tried to deny it.

The parking lot of the school came into view, and Rex veered off to ride towards it. He was surprised to see a dark figure waiting there, leaned up against the dumpster that Melissa used to park her old Ford behind during school hours. For a moment he thought it was actually Melissa herself, but as he got closer, the familiar face of Dess became clearer. Her favorite midnight weapon, a mic stand titled Resplendently Scintillating Illustrations, was at her side. Despite the fact that it was no longer needed, Rex and Dess still carried clean steel around with them as an act of habit, and their rooms were still darkling proofed with thumbtacks arranged in patterns of thirteen.

He cycled up to Dess, jumping off when he finally reached her. Dess grinned at him, flipping a washer into the air like a coin.

"I was wondering if you would show up." She said.

"Couldn't sleep." He said quietly.

"Too much going on in that head of yours?"

Rex sighed. "That's just it." He said. "There's nothing going on. There's nothing to do, nothing to study. And with school out and Maddy gone, I have nothing else to preoccupy my time."

Dess nodded knowingly. "I know what you mean." She said. "I'm stuck doing my parents' taxes again, and after those are done..."

Rex leaned up against the dumpster next to Dess, looking up at the dark moon. There was only about forty more minutes of midnight left, which meant he and Dess would have separate before too much longer in order to make it back to their respective homes before St. Claire found them.

"Have you heard anything from the others?"

The question caught Rex off guard. He looked at Dess, blinking. She didn't look back it him; her eyes remained glued to the sky.

"What?"

"I said, have you heard anything from the others?" Dess repeated.

Rex swallowed.

"No." He said, softly, trying to hide the worry and disappointment in his voice. "Not since Easter back in April."

Dess sighed herself.

"You would think they would at least drop us a postcard or something every once in a while." She said. "To let us know how things are going and where they are."

Rex couldn't agree more. In the two months since he had last heard from them, they could be anywhere. Two months since anyone, especially Melissa, had bothered to fill him and Dess in, the two midnighters that had willingly stayed behind to watch over the home front. Even if they weren't with them physically, they were still a part of the team.

"I'm sure they'll get in touch with us soon." Rex said. He watched as the moon sank lower, signalling the end of midnight. "We'd better get home before the blue time ends." He said. "We don't want to break curfew."

Dess laughed, shortly. "No matter how many cars they dispatch, St. Claire and his groupies will never be able to catch us." She said, picking up Resplendently Scintillating Illustrations and draping it over her shoulder. "We're just too damn sneaky."

Rex gave her a lopsided grin before he grabbed his bike from the dirt.

"See you tomorrow, Dess." He said as he turned to peddle away.

"See ya, seer." Dess said.

***

Something wasn't right.

Rex could feel it.

Even without his darkling senses, Rex could feel something hanging in the air, like something heavy were pushing down on his shoulders. Something was coming, and Rex knew it wasn't good.

He carefully pressed two small pills into his father's hand and helped him tip his head back and swallow them down with a glass of water. The TV blared in front of them, hurting Rex's sensitive photophobic eyes. He didn't dare look up to see just what was going on inside the little box of noise and strobes; TV had not been a pleasure he had been able to enjoy with his midnighter sight. The lights had always been blindingly white, no matter their true color, and had always given Rex a headache. Computers weren't much better.

He scratched the cat behind his ears as he headed back into the kitchen to dispose of his father's glass, setting it in the sink. He glanced at the clock on the microwave, which read 11:42 AM. Dess had called and asked him to meet her at the Clovis Museum, and he agreed. Somehow he knew she wanted to talk about contacting the others.

He grabbed his backpack from the floor by the front door and headed out, daring a glance over his shoulder at his father to make sure he was still in his chair in front of the TV. He had not moved a muscle.

He turned the corner of the old house, finding his bike waiting for him against the tree where he had left it last night after the blue time had ended. He yanked it up and pushed it down his driveway towards the road, happy that it was at least an overcast day.

He finally climbed aboard his vehicle of choice and rode off towards town. He noticed that the dense feeling in the air had not gone since he had left the house, and as he stopped in front of the museum and parked his bike in front, he couldn't help but feel that something was definitely amuck.

He pushed open the door of the museum and headed towards the basement where he and the others used to hold meetings. Now that it was summer, there was hardly anyone on the upper floor, let alone the basement below, and Rex found it comforting to be able to speak without having to censor his thoughts and words.

Dess was waiting for him in the far corner, leaning up against the case of arrowheads. He walked towards her, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.

"Hey, Dess." He said.

Dess did not appear to be very happy. Even with his glasses still on, Rex could see the bags under her eyes, almost like Dess had gone straight home from the blue time but hadn't fallen back asleep.

Dess sighed in responce. "I got called in for questioning." She said.

That was not what Rex was expecting, and he blinked.

"What?" He asked. "Called in for questioning about what?"

"The others!" Dess said. "What do you think?"

"Why are they going to question you?"

"Because Jessica's parents have gone ballistic and decided that there's no way on earth their daughter just disappeared on her own, and they think that we might have something to do with it, and that it might be tied to the others' disappearances." Dess said.

"_We?_" Rex hadn't missed that particular word in Dess's mini rant. "_We?_"

"Yes, _we._" Dess confirmed. "They want to question you too. Especially you."

"But..." For the first time in his life, Rex was completely at a loss for words. "Why?"

Dess rolled her eyes behind her dark sunglasses. "It's Bixby, Rex." She said. "There are only around a hundred kids in our high school, and no matter how hard we tried to stay invisible, it doesn't look like we did a very good job. Everyone knew who we were, and thus, everyone knew that you were our acclaimed leader. They think that you snapped like you did with Timmy Hudson when the darkling still had a hold on you, and did something with them, and that I was involved somehow because I'm the only one left."

"So they're accusing us of kidnapping?" It was more of a statement than a question.

"Precisely. Give Mr. Greene a cigar."

Rex could practically see the sarcasm dripping from Dess's voice. He swallowed.

"When do you go in?" He asked. "For questioning?"

"Today at three." She said.

"Do your parents know?"

Dess shook her head. "I got to the phone before they could." She said. "They would flip if they found out."

Rex shook his head, rubbing his temples. He sat down at one of the little tables surrounding the area.

"God, Dess," he muttered. "What are we going to do?"

Dess huffed. "I think it's time we get in touch with Jonathan and Melissa." She said. "If they come back, maybe we can convince the town that we had nothing to do with their disappearances."

"But we don't know where they are." Rex said. "And now we don't have Madeleine to help us."

Dess gave him a sad look.

"Well we'd better find a way." She said. "Because if we don't, we both might be looking a new form of darkling repellent: handcuffs."


End file.
